Description
Description: A user's guide for non rocket scientists for rendevous and docking.

Summary
Summary: NASA has flown rendezvous missions for nearly a half-century. Since Project Gemini, astronauts and mission controllers have safely brought space vehicles together, whether from one country or more, over the earth or the moon, in a matter of hours or of days. They make it look as easy as calling your best friend and saying, “Meet me at Costco at ten o’clock.” How do they make this astonishing feat look so easy? What does it really take to get a vehicle from the launch pad into orbit and mated safely with another craft, hundreds of miles high traveling at a blistering 18,000 miles per hour? Well, sit down, strap in, and hold on. You’re about to learn why it’s called “rocket science.”

Excerpt
Excerpt: Two times each day, your launch site will pass directly under the plane of your target orbit. This is when you must launch! If you delay, you will be launching into a different orbital plane; even if it has the same inclination, it will cross the equator at a different point and create a wedge angle between the orbits. Since the earth rotates 360° in 24 hours, elementary school math tells you that’s a degree every 15 minutes. Very quickly, you’ll be too far out of plane to ever make your rendezvous.